The Young Scholar Returns and Becomes a Master Chef

[The novel is complete and ready to binge. Bonus chapters are posted separately in the bonus collection on my profile.]

[My historical farming novel next door, The Cannon Fodder Educated Youth Refuses to Return to the City, is now being serialized. Cuties, hurry over and add it to your library!]

The whole novel costs less than a cup of milk tea. Please support the official version and don't read pirated copies! Please, I'm begging you. A humble request from an obscure little author.

[Blurb]

☆ A receiver who can be gentle and refined or strong and scheming X an attacker who can be taciturn or domineering and ruthless ☆

While searching for medicine for his mother, young scholar Ye Chaorui fell off a cliff and unexpectedly transmigrated to another world with advanced technology. A private-dining restaurant owner took him in and taught him how to cook. Three years later, he learned that he was nothing more than cannon fodder destined to take a blade for someone in an alternate-history novel.

In the book, he would be implicated in a major exam-fraud case and permanently lose the right to sit for the exams. One family member would die, another would go missing, and a third would go mad. He himself would become a strategist, only to die taking a blade for the Crown Prince. After his death, he would be posthumously ennobled as a marquis...

After finishing the book, he was dazed and absentminded. One misstep sent him tumbling back to his original world. By then, his family had been devastated by his disappearance and were merely going through the motions of life.

Now that he was back with them, he wanted to live differently this time. He sought neither fame nor fortune, only peace and happiness for his family.

He was exceptionally talented at cooking, and had also learned plenty of advanced techniques in the other world. These were the foundations he could rely on to support his family.

Starting with a humble street-food stall, he opened restaurants and taverns, improved seasonings, held cooking competitions, and established a culinary academy. Before he knew it, he had somehow earned himself a noble title, too.

He gazed at the imperial decree, his thoughts in turmoil. All he had wanted was to make sure his family lived comfortably...

Distracted for a moment, he leaned back and fell into a broad, warm embrace. A kiss landed on the corner of his mouth, and a low voice filled with amusement sounded by his ear. "What are you thinking about, Marquis Ye?"

Ye Chaorui jabbed an elbow behind him, then turned and leaned against the man's chest, raising an eyebrow. "General Nie, are the new caravan guards trained yet? My restaurant needs people to deliver goods."

Nie Xianwang wrapped an arm around Ye Chaorui's lean waist, his eyes crinkling with amusement. "As you command, Marquis Ye. I'll get right to work."

Reading guide:

1. No court politics. This is a food-and-farming novel from beginning to end.

2. This is my first time writing a novel, so the prose and logic may not always be up to par. I hope you'll be patient with me.

Theme: When poor, cultivate virtue in oneself; when prosperous, help the world.